UN has key role in empowering women in post-revolutionary Middle East, experts say
Amid the reverberations from the “Arab Spring,” the United Nations has a key role to play in supporting women in the Middle East by convening disparate voices and identifying new modes of cooperation, experts on women’s rights said during a “Classroom Conversation” with university students from around the world.
“What we need to do is identify new voices, convene and re-evaluate our partnerships and lastly, identify new ways of working together. Which may force us to reconsider how we do development as a United Nations system,” said Azza Karam, Senior Adviser at the UN Population Fund.
Ms. Karam spoke alongside author and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Isobel Coleman, on a panel organized by the UN Academic Impact on Monday on the ways that women are transforming the wider Middle East region in the wake of the Arab reawakening. The audience of more than 100 at the UN Headquarters included students from universities in the New York area and others via webcast.
Noting that women joined men in the front lines of protests, the speakers said that they were now asserting themselves in areas such as higher education, along with their higher literacy rates and increased participation in the workforce. As the revolutions transitioned to political struggles, the roles and status of women continue to evolve.
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